


sunburn

by honeypothux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Exes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension, vintage kylux goodness, wine mom hux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 01:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12996948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeypothux/pseuds/honeypothux
Summary: “You’ve been crying,” Kylo says. The again is unnecessary. They both know its true.





	sunburn

Steam escapes the refresher, rolling across the floor like Stormtrooper boots over whatever Outer Rim planet the First Order has set its sights on today. Uniform on the floor, wine already open on the kitchen table; Kylo takes one look around the room and knows the state of things. He purses his lips beneath his helmet, seats himself on the General’s couch, and waits.

When Hux emerges thirty minutes later, he’s hurt himself. The skin of his chest is the worst, red as viscera, but Kylo looks to his face instead. There, beyond the scalding irritation across the rest of his body, is the red which stabs the hardest. It crowds the green of Hux’s eyes, strips away his severe exterior to reveal a mortal man.

“You’ve been crying,” Kylo says. The again is unnecessary. They both know it to be true.

Hux walks past the couch and toward the pile of clothing on the floor. He picks his underwear and pants-- used, already dirtied, but there --from the floor and drops his towel. Kylo looks back over his shoulder.    
  
Hux’s back is no less scalded than the rest of him. Even the old scars that pepper his lower back and bottom, licks from when he mouthed off to Academy controllers, have traded their white for red, masquerading as new despite their age.   
  
It is a struggle to pull cloth onto damp skin and Hux, despite his usual grace, takes his time to tug his underwear back on. The pants are even worse and he is forced to hop, leg brought up in the air so he can pull at the bottom, just to get the first leg in. On the second leg, he rushes and, for it, he stumbles. The curse that escapes under his breath does not go unnoticed. 

Kylo rises from his seat, rounding the couch and standing at Hux’s back. He is ten feet off, still, but the change in position is enough. Hux tugs his pants the rest of the way up, snaps them closed, and turns to face Kylo, acknowledging him for the first time since he’s arrived.   
  
“Do you intend to keep ignoring me?” Kylo asks. There is nothing in his face or tone to offend, but Hux’s face twists and his fists clench anyway.   
  
“I am looking at you now, aren’t I?” Hux returns. There is everything in his face and tone to offend, but Kylo remains neutral anyway.

“Are you?” The gap between them begins to close as Kylo steps forward, his footfalls heavy. Across from him, Hux inhales and straightens his spine, posturing in the face of danger, ever the stalwart general. “I can’t tell.”   
  
A familiar scoff, so oft deployed to undercut Kylo’s actions, fills the air as Hux shakes his head and pulls away. He makes a B-line for the open wine a room away, unconcerned with the water droplets he leaves in his wake. “Maybe I’m not,” he calls back, gripping the wine by the neck of the bottle and lifting it toward his lips. “Or maybe I can’t. Not while you’re wearing that kriffing thing.”   
  
Kylo remains a room away long enough for Hux to get in three too-large gulps. He allows the self-destruction to happen, knows that any intervention at this stage will mean a larger meltdown later. Patience, he’s found, has its place.

The helmet comes away with a click and hiss, cool air rushing over his skin and forcing him to take pause. Kylo inhales his first unfiltered breath in hours and sets his helmet down on the coffee table before rounding the couch and entering the kitchen. There, Hux is coiled around his bottle with death in his eyes. His grip on the thing is tight; even the Force would struggle to strip him of it.

“Showing yourself, now,” Hux says, smirking. It is a poor mockery of his usual glibness. Kylo can tell because Hux’s lips are stained purple by wine and his eyes waver, unable to reach their icey potential. “I’m surprised you’re willing to take that thing off, given what happened.”   
  
“I’m not vain,” Kylo says, though he is conscious of the cut across his face. He feels it even now that the healing has finished, leaving no trace of pain but marking him nonetheless. “I don’t care if people find me handsome or not.”   
  
The corner of Hux’s lip twitches upward and Kylo wonders if he should count it as a victory or not. “I don’t mean the scar,” Hux shoots back, drawing forward, bolder with a drink in his hand. He’s still far too pink and burnt to come off as threatening, but he pushes back his shoulders and lifts his nose, trying to reclaim his authority. “I mean the failure. It is a quite amazing that you are willing to stand here and look me in the eye after you allowed for the destruction of the oscillator and the escape of its saboteurs. Your personal nonsense ruined our lives, but you are oh so brave in the face of it, aren’t you?”   
  
Three weeks ago, when his wounds were fresh and the Finalizer was abuzz with questions of “What next?,” Kylo would have lashed out. He would have screamed and slashed into the wall, usual austerity stripped away by matters of circumstance and the burning hole in both his side and his ego. Now, he only frowns, watching as Hux carries out his equivalent to melting down, carving his words into daggers and burying them in whatever exposed flesh he can find.

Kylo moves forward again, calling Hux’s bluff. In time, Hux abandons the ground he’s gained, backing towards the far wall. The space between them remains constant, one moving forward and another back, until Hux finds himself cornered. A tactical failure, on his part, but there is no room for contrition in the midst of battle.

“Why have you been crying, Hux?” Kylo asks and Hux sucks a breath through his teeth, the sound like a serpent’s hiss as it stares down the ridged edges of a boot heel. “Do you regret what you’ve done?”

Hux’s eyes widen, pupil shrinking and revealing the cold expanse of his iris. Whatever ferocity he’d feigned moments ago comes alive with all the integrity of the Finalizer’s hull, unrelenting and threatening as he buries his nails in the palm of his hand. There is no one, no one, less justified in asking him this than Kylo Ren. This gargantuan mistake of a man, standing before him with a pathetic frown and droopy eyes which betray his weakness, is like a bird parroting it’s masters demands, speaking without any knowledge of its words. Giving orders and asking questions where it cannot even begin to understand.   
  
“Do you regret it, Ren?” Hux returns, pointing with the end of his bottle, looking more like a man who's lost a brawl in the parking lot of a liquor store than an esteemed general. He simmers with all the confidence of several glasses of wine, unafraid of Kylo Ren’s powers, ready to greet the repercussions of his actions with a shitfaced grin and cackle. “Do you regret coming here, to the Order and Snoke, and giving up whatever life you had before? Do you regret being a disappointment as Ben Solo and a disappointment as Kylo Ren? Do you regret coming to the Finalizer, meeting me, and following this track toward mutual suffering that we both seem so set on pursuing?”   
  
He is the one that moves forward this time, rushing too fast for Kylo to retreat, closing the room between them until he can set an accusatory finger against Kylo’s chest. There, beyond the invisible divisions of personal space, Hux takes pause. He looks up to find Kylo Ren open to him, mask removed, eyes teeming with tumultuous feeling. Hux swallows, holds his ground, sticks to the choices he’s made. He has said what he’s said. There is no other path than this.

Kylo lifts his hand and takes hold of Hux’s wrist. Beneath his thumb, he feels the rapid pulse of Hux’s heart. Each beat buries a wedge in his chest, reminds him off another time and context for the same sensation. Before he can reminisce, Hux clenches his fist, pulling the tendons of his wrist taught, and the thoughts are banished from his mind.   
  
“You can’t run away from my question, Hux,” Kylo says, even as he darts from those Hux has asked of him. They aren’t real, just maneuvers in a dogfight, the spin of a fighter as it tries to outrun. He won’t be baited into a pointless argument. After five years, he’s finally starting to learn.

But, in that same time, so has Hux. He swallows whatever vitriol has settled on his tongue and comes back with burning acid instead. Slowly, like a bounty hunter toward his sleeping victim, Hux leans forward. His breath skirts across Kylo’s cheek and he turns his head, lips floating above Kylo’s ear. Another time, another place, this might have been pleasant. But they are embroiled in the wreckage of a system and so many stars, lost in the glare of the supernova Starkiller left behind, and even his favorite wine brings Hux no pleasure.   
  
“Do you regret killing Han Solo?”   


Even without the Force, Hux recognizes the shift in sensation. The air grows thin around him, difficult to swallow down. It is like being caught at the bottom of the sea, the weight of every fish and lost ship pressing down on his lungs. He only has one gasp of air in him and he holds it, lets it rest at the back of his throat while his body adjusts. At the same time, Kylo grabs his jaw, buries his thumb and forefinger against his flesh, and forces their eyes together. 

Hux always imagined he’d look up someday and find yellow eyes, burning like molten metal, the scorching mark left behind as Kylo’s humanity shriveled and died. Red-rung and piercing, they stare out at him, stealing his last breath away. In a moment, Hux thinks, he will be dead. Kylo Ren will run him through, melt his heart on his saber, and abandon his body on the floor. 

The image raises a romantic thought. Waiting for the end, Hux hopes that, regardless of how he feels about Han Solo, Kylo regrets him. That Kylo will regret cutting him down. That he already regrets having come to his room and latched his hand around his wrist, reminding them both of a time when they believed they’d had anyone but themselves. Hux hopes that, when he is gone, he will be missed, and that that missingness will chew another hole into the moth’s eaten cloth that makes up Kylo Ren’s heart.

Only, as the initial panic passes, Hux finds that he’s been mistaken. There is no yellow in sight, only warm brown and a tinge of red, the sure sign that tears are threatening to spill and wash away one’s dignity.   
  
“Do you want me to kill you?” Kylo asks, his voice shaking. His free hand comes up, catching Hux by his shoulder, pulling his body every closer. Kylo is cradling him, almost, as he tilts Hux’s head back and stares down into his face. He wants to find some sliver of humor, a cruel little smirk that says, “Careful, Ren. You’re growing vulnerable,” but he only finds wide eyes and tense lips, a horrifying absence of spite. 

“Is that what you’re looking for? Is that why you’re speaking to me like this? Do you just want me to kill you?” Kylo continues, releasing Hux’s jaw and fisting his hand in his hair, instead. He waits for an answer, for a scoff that releases all the tension, and receives spirit shredding silence instead. “Answer me!” he shouts, voice slamming against the walls of Hux’s quarters. At the back of his mind, he apologizes, but the words don’t take form in his mouth.   
  
Hux exhales and shifts, steadying his feet on the ground and pulling his head as far forward as Kylo’s grip will allow. “Would you?” he asks, nearly whispers. “Would you kill me over this?”   
  
“Hux.” Kylo tightens his hold on him again, worried he might feel him crumble apart and slip through his fingers like wretched sand. 

There is another exhale and, then, Hux bows his head and sets it against Kylo’s shoulder. “I don’t regret it,” he says, letting his eyes fall closed. “But I do feel bad.”

Kylo releases Hux’s hair, letting his hand drop to back of Hux’s neck. A wise part of himself says that he ought to back away, leave before things get worse and he does more than serve as a physical support. But there is pooling warmth on his skin, both from the physical contact and something he can not dare to name. “Aren’t those the same things?”   
  
Hux shakes his head, turning his face against Kylo’s throat. That damn pleated collar is there, rubbing against his skin, but he tolerates it because he can’t imagine pulling away, now. “No, they aren’t the same thing,” he says, soft. “If you were to put me down on the surface of Starkiller again, with all the knowledge I have now, the only thing I would do differently is ensure the oscillator had higher security.” He clicks his tongue, tightening his grip on the bottle. “Or perhaps remind Phasma of her sworn oath to die for the Order and not follow the instructions of insurgents to save her own skin.” 

A smile cracks onto Kylo’s face; for once, he gets the sense that he isn’t the first name on Hux’s list of “Incompetent Idiots.” “So, you’re just upset that we lost the base?” he asks, setting his chin on Hux’s head. It is a tentative gesture, made with such care the that slightest flinch might send him darting across the room, wary of having gone too far. “And so many men with it.”   
  
“The loss of Starkiller is tragic, frustrating, and inconvenient, but it isn’t what I feel bad about.” Hux runs his thumb over the opening of the bottle, feeling where wine has rendered it sticky. It seems like poor taste to drink while nestled against Kylo Ren’s chest but, then, he’s shirtless, still wet from the shower, and cuddled up to a disgraced Dark Sider. There isn’t very much further down to go, in terms of taste. 

He takes a drink and returns his face to its hiding place, subject to the same, smoky, atmospheric scent that Kylo always seems to smell of. “But consider this; surely you’ve heard of the cruiser problem, yes? You are walking along when you see a cruiser on a collision course with a crowded plaza. You have the power to redirect the cruiser, but only in the direction of a woman who is standing nearby. If you do nothing, many people in the plaza will die. If you do something, the woman will die. Which of these is the ethical decision?”   


The problem is not lost on Kylo; it is a common thought experiment, raised so often that it has become more joke than serious quandary. It’s relevance here, however, does evade him. “It depends, doesn’t it?” he says, inclining his head. “If you do not believe inaction is inherently unethical, then doing nothing is the moral choice; you are responsible for no one’s death, that way. But if you believe you’re obligated to preserve as many lives as possible—”   
  
“To be utilitarian. To be, for lack of another word, responsible,” Hux interjects.   
  
Kylo nods his head. “If you’re going to be utilitarian, then saving the crowd is the ethical choice.”   
  
“And subjective as it is, Ren, which choice would you make? Which one is right to you?” Hux asks. The question carries more weight than Kylo is willing to admit. So, he doesn’t.

Kylo pulls back just far enough for his eyes to meet Hux’s again. “I would agree with you,” he says. “If I have to pick, saving more seems like the best choice I have.”   
  
“The best choice you have,” Hux repeats. “But not a good choice. Not a choice that you can be proud of. Not something you will sleep well on. Just the best you can possibly do in a world where every path forward is bloody.”   
  
Kylo frowns. The purpose of the problem begins to become apparent.    
  
Hux pulls away from him, stalking around the room, fingertips trailing over the wall. His shoulders droop, military posture tossed aside, head hanging low. If his old Academy instructors could see him now, they would be so terribly disappointed.

“The destruction of the Hosnian System was a strategic necessity in our fight against a corrupt government,” Hux says and Kylo can hear him mounting the soap box, wetting his lips before his voice carries over some unseen crowd. “The Republic violated its own peace agreements and funded the activities of a violent group of insurgents, infringing on the Order’s sovereignty while claiming complete innocence. We were left with no option other than to relieve them of their arms. Destroying the fleet stationed at the Hosnian system was the swiftest means of doing so and, while civilian casualties were great, they were undoubtedly less than what might have come from a long term, intergalactic war.”   
  
“Right,” Kylo says, waiting for the tipping point. “But?”   
  
“But,” Hux repeats, “I think about that beam every day. I lost my own planet to the war. Not quite in the same way, of course. It only changed hands. But I lost it nevertheless. I lost the people, I lost the cities, I lost the sea. I know that pain. I know it is unpleasant. And as much as I was an innocent child then, suffering at the whims of far off men I’d never meet or see, so too are there children now who suffer because of what I’ve done. Children I will never have the chance to look upon, either because the galaxy is vast or because I’ve turned them to vapor.”   
  
Distantly, Kylo can hear the activation of his own saber and the confused voices of people he’d once known. A similar dilemma, he thinks. And an injury he has never learned to soothe.

So, he only closes the gap between them again, once again. He brings an arm around Hux’s waist and pulls him backward, hooking him in close. “You’re ashamed,” he whispers, and Hux scoffs at him.   
  
“I’m no such thing,” Hux snaps back, finishing his bottle of wine. He clutches the empty glass, knuckles going white around it. “But you ought to be, falling back into this mess so easily.” He grabs Kylo’s arm by the wrist and pulls it aside, stepping free again. “Have some pride.”   
  
The words come out like blood spat on the battleground and Kylo squares his shoulders, remaining firmly in place as Hux slinks away to throw himself over his lounging couch. The door, Kylo reminds himself, is not so far away. Leaving is a perfectly acceptable option.   
  
He finds himself sitting at the end of the couch anyway, watching as Hux scratches at the few scrapes Starkiller left him with.   


It takes five minutes before either of them speaks again. Hux is the one to do it, curling upwards, regarding Kylo with half-lidded eyes and a scowl. “Why are you here, Ren?” he asks, the fight struck from his voice. He sounds like he might slip into defeated rest at any moment, the will to carry on squeezed from his body.   
  
Kylo licks his bottom lip and takes his time to answer. Like so many of the questions they’ve already shared, Hux doesn’t truly want an answer. Kylo knows that. His motivations are plain as the loss carved into face, just as ugly and just as weak. 

“You might have left me on Starkiller,” he says. “The Supreme Leader would not have punished you if he had reason to believe my retrieval was truly impossible.”

Hux laughs and Kylo’s heart leaps into his throat. He’d have choked on it if it were not so shriveled and neglected, now. He might still, if Hux carries on like this. 

‘I might have, that’s true,” Hux says. He curls an arm underneath a throw pillow and buries his face against it. Kylo can’t decide if the wine has finally taken effect or, in an affront to history, Hux has finally relaxed. In either case, he lets his own shoulders slouch, too.

“But you didn’t.”   
  
Hux nods. “No,” he whispers, eyes closing. “I did not.”

Again, silence. Kylo leans back against the couch, sinking into it. He regards the ceiling, following the crisp lines of the paneling. If he were a more optimistic man, he might take all of this to imply some truce between Hux and himself. But wisdom tells him that he shouldn’t be so foolish. He lives only because he is useful. And though that use is invisible to him, it is plain to Hux. Plain enough to make the weight of these silences worthwhile.

As his own eyelids begin to grow heavy, Hux presses the bottom of his foot to Kylo’s thigh, nudging him. “I have an order for you, Kylo Ren,” he says, not bothering to lift his head. “Are you listening?”   
  
“You don’t give me orders, Hux,” Kylo returns. “But go on.”   
  
Hux sits up once again, pulling his knees up into a bend and folding his arms overtop of them. Despite the haze of alcohol, he appears sharp. Like a freshly cut durasteel blade, aching for use. He reaches out and takes hold of Kylo’s jaw, squeezing hard enough to leave little red dots behind. 

“You and I,” he says, almost snarls. He sounds like the ghost of himself out on Starkiller’s surface, catching just enough of his old ferocity to make Kylo’s pulse quicken. “We are going to make this right. The embarrassments we’ve faced will be righted. The losses we’ve suffered and caused will become righteous sacrifices in light of the future we create."

Hux inches closer, his breathe hot, no different than the humid exhales of a looming ranchor, mouth poised to crush and swallow. “Here is your order, Kylo Ren: avenge us. Avenge our honor. Repair your saber. Cut down that coward, Phasma. Finish FN-2187. And as for the one that did this…”   
  
Hux ran his thumb over the wound on Kylo’s face, feeling the texture of the battered skin. It stung horribly, but Kylo did not dare to flinch way. Instead, he relished in the pain, drawing on it. With this suffering, he would find the strength to pull through.   
  
“Bring her to me.” Hux’s voice quakes, his touch growing just barely lighter. “Bring her to me and let me show her what is done with those who dare to question the authority of the First Order.”   
  
Kylo does not know if he hears the pain of affection or sorrow, but he nods anyway. “I accept,” he breathes, reaching out to cup Hux’s cheek. “I’ll fix this, Hux. I won’t fail you a second ti-”   
  
His words fall dead, frail heart shuddering. Hux holds Kylo’s outstretched hand in place, keeping it from his own face. “Remember your master, Kylo Ren,” he says, forcing all feeling from his voice. “He is waiting for you, now. It is best not to speak of failing anyone but him.”   
  
The moment is over, Kylo realizes. He pulls away before Hux can force him aside, thinking it might impart more dignity. In truth, he has not received what he came for, if he ever even knew what that was. But the call to the door is stronger than it has ever been, for once strong enough to overpower the tug in the opposite direction. He steps toward it, looking back only once he hears Hux lay back down.   
  
“I’m going to be changing the entrance keycode,” Hux says and Kylo calls his helmet to his hand with the Force, tugging it back on wordlessly.   
  
“It would be best, after the breach in security we’ve had,” Kylo replies, his voice modulated and rough. Still, Hux knows him well enough to hear the little waver, a sure sign of weakness in the face of all that lie before them.

The door slides open once Kylo is a few feet from it, revealing the vast emptiness of the hall. Kylo stops at the threshold for a moment, feeling Hux’s eyes on his back.    
  
“Kylo?”   
  
Without turning around: “Yes?”

“It was fun, wasn’t it?”   
  
Kylo bites down on his own tongue, pinning it in place. He nods his head, hands balled into fists at his sides. Hux, the bastard. There was no winning against him, not even when he was drunk and lying in shambles. There always had to be one final word, something to stick between Kylo’s ribs and haunt him. Yes, Kylo has only one master to serve, but oh how Hux has done his best to confuse that man’s identity.

With the grace of the Force, Kylo moves out into the hall, the door slipping shut behind him. He does not turn back, does not even turn his head. Somewhere, Snoke is waiting. He was wrong to keep him that way for so long, already.

As the door closes, Hux feels a burn at the back of his eyes. It spreads across his skin like sickness, hot and awful as fever. He tries to blink it away but it sticks like hatred, or maybe something worse. Immediately, he stands, certain of what he needs.   
  
Salvation is only one hot shower away.   
  



End file.
